9

500.A4D/203

The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations (Borah), United States Senate

[WASHINGTON,] February 23, 1932.

MY DEAR SENATOR BORAH:

You have asked my opinion whether, as has been sometimes recently
suggested, present conditions in China have in any way indicated that
the so-called Nine Power Treaty has become inapplicable or ineffective
or rightly in need of modification, and if so, what I considered should
be the policy of this Government.

This Treaty, as you of course know, forms the legal basis upon which now
rests the "Open Door" policy towards China. That policy, enunciated by
John Hay in 1899, brought to an end the struggle among various powers
for so-called spheres of interest in China which was threatening the
dismemberment of that empire. To accomplish this Mr. Hay invoked two
principles (1) equality of commercial opportunity among all nations in
dealing with China, and (2) as necessary to that equality the
preservation of China's territorial and administrative integrity. These
principles were not new in the foreign policy of America. They had been
the principles upon which it rested in its dealings with other nations
for many years. In the case of China they were invoked to save a
situation which not only threatened the future development and
sovereignty of that great Asiatic people, but also threatened to create
dangerous and constantly increasing rivalries between the other nations
of the world. War had already taken place between Japan and China. At
the close of that war three other nations intervened to prevent

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Japan from obtaining some of the results of that war claimed by her.
Other nations sought and had obtained spheres of interest. Partly as a
result of these actions a serious uprising had broken out in China which
endangered the legations of all of the powers at Peking. While the
attack on those legations was in progress, Mr. Hay made an announcement
in respect to this policy as the principle upon which the powers should
act in the settlement of the rebellion. He said

"The policy of the government of the United States is to seek a solution
which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve
Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights
guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and
safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with
all parts of the Chinese Empire."

He was successful in obtaining the assent of the other powers to the
policy thus announced.

In taking these steps Mr. Hay acted with the cordial support of the
British Government. In responding to Mr. Hay's announcement, above set
forth, Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister expressed himself
"most emphatically as concurring in the policy of the United States."

For twenty years thereafter the Open Door policy rested upon the
informal commitments thus made by the various powers. But in the winter
of 1921 to 1922, at a conference participated in by all of the principal
powers which had interests in the Pacific, the policy was crystallized
into the so-called Nine Power Treaty, which gave definition and
precision to the principles upon which the policy rested. In the first
article of that Treaty, the contracting powers, other than China, agreed

To respect the sovereignty, the independence and the territorial and
administrative integrity of China.

To provide the fullest and most unembarrassed opportunity to China to
develop and maintain for herself an effective and stable government.

To use their influence for the purpose of effectually establishing
and maintaining the principle of equal opportunity for the commerce and
industry of all nations throughout the territory of China .

To refrain from taking advantage of conditions in China in order to
seek special rights or privileges which would abridge the rights of
subjects or citizens of friendly states, and from countenancing action
inimical to the security of such states.

This Treaty thus represents a carefully developed and matured
international policy intended, on the one hand, to assure to all of

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the contracting parties their rights and interests in and with regard to
China, and on the other hand, to assure to the people of China the
fullest opportunity to develop without molestation their sovereignty and
independence according to the modern and enlightened standards believed
to maintain among the peoples of this earth. At the time this Treaty was
signed, it was known that China was engaged in an attempt to develop the
free institutions of a self-governing republic after her recent
revolution from an autocratic form of government; that she would require
many years of both economic and political effort to that end; and that
her progress would necessarily be slow. The Treaty was thus a covenant
of self-denial among the signatory powers in deliberate renunciation of
any policy of aggression which might tend to interfere with that
development. It was believed-and the whole history of the development of
the "Open Door" policy reveals that faith-that only by such a process,
under the protection of such an agreement, could the fullest interests
not only of China but of all nations which have intercourse with her
best be served.

In its report to the President announcing this Treaty, the American
Delegation, headed by the then Secretary of State, Mr. Charles E.
Hughes, said5

"It is believed that through this Treaty the 'Open Door' in China has at
last been made a fact."

During the course of the discussions which resulted in the Treaty,6
the Chairman of the British delegation, Lord Balfour, had stated that

"The British Empire delegation understood that there was no
representative of any power around the table who thought that the old
practice of 'spheres of interest' was either advocated by any government
or would be tolerable to this conference. So far as the British
Government were concerned, they had, in the most formal manner, publicly
announced that they regarded this practice as utterly inappropriate to
the existing situation."

At the same time the representative of Japan, Baron Shidehara announced
the position of his Government as follows:

"No one denies to China her sacred right to govern herself. No one
stands in the way of China to work out her own great national destiny."

The Treaty was originally executed by the United States, Belgium, the
British Empire, China, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands

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and Portugal. Subsequently it was also executed by Norway, Bolivia,
Sweden, Denmark and Mexico. Germany has signed it but her parliament has
not yet ratified it.

It must be remembered also that this Treaty was one of several treaties
and agreements entered into at the Washington Conference by the various
powers concerned, all of which were interrelated and interdependent. No
one of these treaties can be disregarded without disturbing the general
understanding and equilibrium which were intended to be accomplished and
effected by the group of agreements arrived at in their entirety. The
Washington Conference was essentially a disarmament conference, aimed to
promote the possibility of peace in the world not only through the
cessation of competition in naval armament but also by the solution of
various other disturbing problems which threatened the peace of the
world, particularly in the Far East. These problems were all
interrelated. The willingness of the American Government to surrender
its then commanding lead in battleship construction and to leave its
positions at Guam and in the Philippines without further fortification,
was predicated upon, among other things, the self-denying covenants
contained in the Nine Power Treaty, which assured the nations of the
world not only of equal opportunity for their Eastern trade but also
against the military aggrandizement of any other power at the expense of
China. One cannot discuss the possibility of modifying or abrogating
those provisions of the Nine Power Treaty without considering at the
same time the other promises upon which they were really dependent.

Six years later the policy of self-denial against aggression by a
stronger against a weaker power, upon which the Nine Power Treaty had
been based, received a powerful reinforcement by the execution by
substantially all the nations of the world of the Pact of Paris, the
so-called Kellogg Briand Pact. These two treaties represent independent
but harmonious steps taken for the purpose of aligning the conscience
and public opinion of the world in favor of a system of orderly
development by the law of nations including the settlement of all
controversies by methods of justice and peace instead of by arbitrary
force. The program for the protection of China from outside aggression
is an essential part of any such development. The signatories and
adherents of the Nine Power Treaty rightly felt that the orderly and
peaceful development of the 400,000,000 of people inhabiting China was
necessary to the peaceful welfare of the entire world and that no
program for the welfare of the world as a whole could afford to neglect
the welfare and protection of China.

The recent events which have taken place in China, especially the

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hostilities which having been begun in Manchuria have latterly been
extended to Shanghai, far from indicating the advisability of any
modification of the treaties we have been discussing, have tended to
bring home the vital importance of the faithful observance of the
covenants therein to all of the nations interested in the Far East. It
is not necessary in that connection to inquire into the causes of the
controversy or attempt to apportion the blame between the two nations
which are unhappily involved; for regardless of cause or responsibility,
it is clear beyond peradventure that a situation has developed which
cannot, under any circumstances, be reconciled with the obligations of
the covenants of these two treaties, and that if the treaties had been
faithfully observed such a situation could not have arisen. The
signatories of the Nine Power Treaty and of the Kellogg-Briand Pact who
are not parties to that conflict are not likely to see any reason for
modifying the terms of those treaties. To them the real value of the
faithful performance of the treaties has been brought sharply home by
the perils and losses to which their nationals have been subjected in Shanghai.

That is the view of this Government. We see no reason for abandoning the
enlightened principles which are embodied in these treaties. We believe
that this situation would have been avoided had these covenants been
faithfully observed, and no evidence has come to us to indicate that a
due compliance with them would have interfered with the adequate
protection of the legitimate rights in China of the signatories of those
treaties and their nationals.

On January 7th last, upon the instruction of the President, this
Government formally notified Japan and China that it would not recognize
any situation, treaty or agreement entered into by those governments in
violation of the covenants of these treaties, which affected the rights
of our Government or its citizens in China. If a similar decision should
be reached and a similar position taken by the other governments of the
world, a caveat will be placed upon such action which, we believe, will
effectively bar the legality hereafter of any title or right sought to
be obtained by pressure or treaty violation, and which, as has been
shown by history in the past, will eventually lead to the restoration to
China of rights and titles of which she may have been deprived.

In the past our Government, as one of the leading powers on the Pacific
Ocean, has rested its policy upon an abiding faith in the future of the
people of China and upon the ultimate success in dealing with them of
the principles of fair play, patience, and mutual goodwill. We
appreciate the immensity of the task which lies before her statesmen

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in the development of her country and its government. The delays in her
progress, the instability of her attempts to secure a responsible
government, were foreseen by Messrs. Hay and Hughes and their
contemporaries and were the very obstacles which the policy of the Open
Door was designed to meet. We concur with those statesmen, representing
all the nations, in the Washington Conference who decided that China was
entitled to the time necessary to accomplish her development. We are
prepared to make that our policy for the future.